THE VISIT:
On August 15, 2018, I visited the 9/11 Memorial for the first time. I had hesitated to approach the site for years even though I visited New York frequently, not sure if I could withstand a reminder of the immense shock and tragedy of that day like no other.
Unlike me, the victims of the plane crashes and the catastrophic collapse of the towers had no choice. The first responders did not think twice, many punished by immediate death or with debilitating or fatal respiratory damage.
Standing on the ground where it happened, I paid my respects.
The name of each person lost is engraved in the polished granite frames surrounding the two pools. The guards assigned to the site keep a close eye on the visitors, occasionally requesting them to remove a cell phone, a coffee cup, a backpack, a handbag carelessly set on top of the names etched with perfection.
We do not place such ordinary objects on cemetery headstones. The reprimand opens us more closely to the significance of the memorial site, protected by the unabated attention of its guardians.
But we instinctively place our hands on the smooth stone and trace the grooves forming each name. The touch comforts and cuts, both.
THE VISITORS:
What also struck me was the diversity of people paying their respects, many languages spoken, ethnic and religious groups represented, young people who were not yet born at the time, older people like me who remember the day, others deeply scarred for life by personal loss of a loved friend, a dear family member, a valued colleague.
A group of five middle-aged men pose together in front of the pool, but do not smile for their photo. I suspect they are there to honor someone they had lost, and do so every year.
Two young girls silently stare at the waters that flow down the sides of the four walls of the two building imprints, then into the depth and darkness of the central core, a depiction of the unknown eternity to which these souls took leave.
THE DAY:
On September 11th, my husband and I were visiting his brother and sister-in-law for a long late summer weekend in Little Compton, Rhode Island.
We’d enjoyed a first-time trip to Arizona and New Mexico in February. Our son had married in Israel in March. Our daughter graduated high school in June and started her freshman year at Brandeis the week before. We’d just signed a P&S agreement for a smaller house, our nest emptied. The year was going very well.
Walking to the end of the jetty in the middle of the harbor, we took in the early morning sunshine, the smell of salt water in the fresh air, the sound of the waves splashing against the rocks. We returned to the house, ready for breakfast, but instead heard urgent, rising voices as we walked through the door, “Look at the TV—QUICKLY—there’s been a terrible accident in New York.”
The first plane.
When we witnessed the second plane hit in real time, horror overcame all four of us. This was no accident.
Paul and I looked at each other with the same thought even before we said it. Let’s leave right now to find our daughter. Phone lines were down, jammed beyond capacity. We arrived on campus to students gathering in hushed groups outdoors on a sunny morning. We found our daughter in her dorm room, as if she just knew we’d be there within two hours of the hit. Many at Brandeis had family in New York and were unable to get calls through.
Our oldest son ived and worked in Manhattan. We had no way to reach him. The largest cellphone antenna in the city had stood atop the North Tower.
He tells us that he ran up to the roof of his apartment to see the towers burning, smoking, then collapsing. He describes the chaos in the streets as a sea of people ran in panic away from Lower Manhattan, covered with ash and dust, many wearing no shoes, coughing and choking, fleeing for their lives, not sure what else would happen along the way.
He had worked some years ago as a waiter at Windows on the World on the 103rd floor, including the time of the truck bomb attack in the underground parking garage. The vision of the workers in the restaurant, trapped above the impact zone and facing their imminent deaths, continues to haunt him.
This was not the world defined by the illusions of peace and the hopes for humanity that we had celebrated at the turn of the Millennium just the year before. Then, hope took shape on the television screen in the fast-forward depiction of dawn breaking around the globe on January 1, 2000.
The only real worry—which turned out to be groundless despite a year of endless angst and media coverage—was the potential crash of computer systems as they turned over from 1999 into the new century.
Instead, it was a distraction. The undercurrent of truly dangerous activity went undetected.
NORTH DAKOTA GIRL:
In the aftermath of 9/11, The New York Times published, at the rate of one hundred per day, a photo and brief biography of each person killed in the attacks. The country had not come to terms with the event as a whole, but we could grieve for the individuals who were lost.
Five years later, I read a newspaper article entitled Hopes and Dreams, Lost on 9/11, Saved on a Laptop, about a young woman from North Dakota, Ann Nelson, working on the 104th floor in her new job as a bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald.
She perished that morning at the age of thirty.
Eventually, her possessions, including her laptop from her apartment, were returned to her parents. They opened it together, five years later, to discover a file entitled “Top 100,” a list of goals and dreams their daughter had enumerated for her future, a list “that reflected a young woman’s commitment to the serious, to the frivolous, to all of life.” Some of them here:
- Be a good friend
- Keep in touch with people I love and that love me
- Make a quilt
- Nepal
- Get a graduate degree
- Kilimanjaro
- Always keep improving
- Read everyday
- Learn about art
- Grand Canyon
- Helicopter-ski with my Dad
- Remember birthdays!!!!
- Visit the New York Public Library
- Learn about other cultures
- Buy a home in North Dakota
Ann was moving through her list, working on expanding her life as any thirty-year-old is supposed to do. Her list continued to number 36, but numbers 37 to 100 were left blank, placeholders for new thoughts and dreams to come to mind.
New York was not on her wish list—she had already made it there.
Unbeknownst to her, Ann represents many in their young adulthood who reported as usual to their jobs at the World Trade Center. They ended the weekend, dressed for Monday, waited for the subway. When they reached their stop, they grabbed their breakfast sandwiches and cups of take-out coffee, walked quickly to the elevator bank, ascended to remarkable heights, greeted their co-workers.
Within minutes, they would call hysterically from their cellphones to leave final messages to their closest loved ones before disappearing into the chaos now represented by water flowing downward into dark oblivion—nothing they ever expected to happen when they arrived at the North or South tower on a clear and ordinarily beautiful September morning.
A young woman of goodness and purpose, poised—in an unimaginable moment—to assume her rightful place among the stars.
WATERS, ETERNAL:
The 9/11 Memorial honors not only the catastrophic series of events and the thousands directly affected. In a profound way, it recognizes the sad losses in the course of all of our individual lives. I felt it strongly as I stood there, thinking of my husband.
The scope and design of the site embodies the universal sadness that we endure alongside the triumphs achieved and the compassion felt for all of humanity. The national divide dissolves, briefly.
Everyone has lost someone, somewhere.
This is a place where death by hellfire laced with black smoke, by thick clouds of choking dust, by collapsing tons of concrete, by hitting pavement after free fall, by crashing in flight into the side of a building or onto a field, into oblivion—occurred on a day with twenty-four hours in it, just like yesterday, just like today, just like tomorrow, in the continuum of time.
And the people who died in the catastrophe lost each of these days for the past seventeen years, days that should have been theirs.
After its descent into the dark pool, the water repeats its climb to the top of the ledge, nearly level with the thousands of names, both honored and doomed. It follows a changeless loop, as if bringing back, over and over, the day itself.
The endlessly flowing waters quench the raging fires, absorb the choking dust, consume the black smoke, purify the toxic air, still the ashes, drench the steel, wash over the wounds, cushion the fall of the jumpers who plummet into the depths, then rise beyond the surface, onward to the safety of the heavens.
***photo courtesy of Zimri Levine, taken in 1998
POSTSCRIPT, reprinted from The New York Times, September 11, 2023:
According to the Uniformed Firefighters Association, 341 firefighters, paramedics and other Fire Department employees have died from cancers and other illnesses linked to the toxic dust at ground zero. The number of firefighters who died on September 11th was 343.
This year’s anniversary came just three days after Mayor Adams and the city’s chief medical examiner announced that two additional victims had been identified, the 1,648th and 1,649th. They join a list of 60 others identified in recent years from remains recovered using advanced DNA testing.
Very nice piece, Barrie. Peace…
We will always remember that terrible day. Everyone knows where they were & what they were doing. Never forget those who died & the heroes who rushed in.
Post on 9/11- A particularly beautiful Post, Barrie. Thank you for commemorating the day in such beautiful words. Once again you write beautifully even about sad and difficult things.
Love,
Donna
Thank you for this thoughtful, somber piece. The last paragraph – itself a remarkable piece of writing, but also a powerful culmination of the rest of the essay – brought tears to my eyes.
Oh my….
So beautifully written. Brings back such visceral feelings to this native New Yorker.
Thank you Barrie ❤
Wow. I am in awe of your incredibly descriptive and emotional writing. This says it all. This should be required reading for high school students learning about that horrible day in their history classes.
Wow. I am blown away by this one. It should be required reading for high school students learning about this horrific day in their history classes.
Oh, Barrie, what a moving Post! It’s the most beautiful and melancholic piece of work I have ever read. The words drew me into the plaintive and sorrowful memories of that fateful day — 9/11.
Barrie, wonderful writing! On every September 11 I think back, remembering every detail of where I was and what I saw on TV that morning. David was supposed to be in that area, but fortunately he was “in the field” in Suffolk County. I had to keep on reassuring our kids that he was ok. The custodian in my school turned on the TV almost immediately; one of my colleagues had a brother who had worked in one of the towers. I think classes remained in session, but the principal went around to the rooms to reassure the students as much as he could.
Thank you Barrie!
XO
Janice
Thank you Janice for sharing your own experiences of the day. We all know where we were, and how we felt. I remember learning that David worked in that area and thankfully didn’t have to report to his office. It was enough that he was in Vietnam…
I had difficulty reading this. I’m not an American but as a Canadian living in Whistler, BC at the time, I had so many American friends. And now so many authors who’ve become friends. I also remember every single moment of that morning. And for us in Canada, we always looked at the US as just an extension of all of us, so we too, mourned. I didn’t lose friends or family to this incident but I did lose two very important men in my life, one who definitely was involved in the hunt, and retired after an important resolution. And another who lingers on although he will never live outside of a hospital. They both made a difference and I stood with them in the only way I knew how: love. You brought it home to me again. Thank you.
Lynda, I really appreciate your perspective as a Canadian who was also deeply affected, we are “attached” in geography but also in sensibility and humanity. And I am sorry for the deep damage that was done to your friends and that changed your life too.
You know, because you are a writer too, that writing connects us. Even if it opens wounds again, it is intended with compassion. Thank you for letting me know with your full heart.
Who could have known that such a beautiful morning at the harbor with your husband would turn into horror, chaos and unimaginable fear. Not knowing if your children were safe, must have been horrible for both of you. I’m so happy that you found them safe. Your descriptions of the 9/11 experience were truthful, accurate, sensitive and much more. Remembering Ann Nelson was thoughtful and compassionate. I prayed for her and all the other people who lost their lives that day. Your description of the memorial sounds like a beautiful place to visit; to remember and to pray. Thank you, Barrie, for sharing your experiences and for writing about it.
Thank you Diane for reading and understanding my experience of 9/11. Yet it pales next to what happened to the victims, and their friends and families who are forever traumatized. But we are one as humanity so it hurts us all.
You are such a gifted writer, Barrie
Thank you Anne for reading my 9/11 piece. I just felt that I had to go there and not delay further. And the annual ceremony, like a Yahrzeit, is very important.
How very touching Barrie. We all know exactly where we were at that moment. I was busy hiring a tuxedo for my eldest son’s Matric farewell. In the store, TV screens were flashing live images of what was happening in my beloved New York. I watched in disbelief and horror. I still have photo’s of this son and my Mom and Dad at the lookout deck of the World Trade Centre when he was just 3 years old. I was in total shock and couldn’t hold back the tears.
It was also my middle son’s 16th birthday that day. How could I shield him from this devastating sadness and destruction being shown again and again on TV? It was supposed to be his happy day. His special day turned into a nightmare. I know I needed to get everyone away from the TV so we went out that night to a restaurant with no TV, just to focus and honor for a short while this milestone birthday for my son. I was definately not hungry. It has been a sad reminder every year since on his birthday, that it was also one of the saddest days in modern history. I have not been to New York to visit Ground Zero, but I hope to one day, I wish to pay my respects to those who lost their lives and loved ones that day. Standing there is clearly deeply painful and overwhelming. Impossible to describe. Thank you for a great piece of writing about a tragedy that touched us all. I look forward to catching up on everything in your most interesting blog. Best regards M
Thank you, Barrie, for a beautiful essay. Thank you for including Ann Nelson’s list of things she wanted to accomplish. So tragic. I watched this tragedy from afar–we were stationed in the Philippines then. Washington DC was next on our agenda. Our departure was delayed. We left for Washington in October 2001.
I particularly remember the story of the young American man who took control of one of the planes and crashed it in a field so that it couldn’t destroy anything else.
It was all unimaginable, what people went through, and then the heroism of that young man on the plane, and so many more.
Barrie, you organize and sanctify our world and our deepest feelings. It’s a gift for which I thank you along with your other readers.
Thank you Sue for reading my piece and conveying such a high compliment. As you know, when a writer feels heard, and can touch even one reader, it means so much.
Thank you Barrie,
I found this just a bit ago .. I read it when I found it .. therefore the bit ago .. and clicked
shuddering, the “like” button as acknowledging to myself I had read it all the way through.
Often, I am like an ostrich. and avoid the distressful by not finishing reading something that distresses my soul .. I knew I had to read your compassionate words .. bringing back that day remembering it from the clear blue sky on the TV as I left for work, mentioning the obvious … a wonderful day for New York, without a cloud in the sky. Then, at work, on a dementia unit being called to view the apocalypse as the 2nd plane appeared on the screen.
The building was put in lockdown, being a home for Veteran’s, my daughter called as the Pentagon was struck, looking for her father, eventually finding him safe. People who visited their loved ones, and staff maintained a solemn respect thru the days that followed.
Your words are eloquent and thought provoking ..
In Grapevine, TX, a few minutes from where my daughter lived, there is a Flight Crew Memorial, which took two visits .. once to say my respects, and then, the time, to read all the names on the pillars of every name engraved there.
We were the only ones at the sight. Thank you for mentioning the others who were present when you were at the NYC Memorial.
So many memories you woke up as I read your tribute.
Peace and love always
Siggi
Dear Siggi, thank you so much for reading and commenting on my 9/11 story, and for sharing your own heartfelt thoughts about The Day. And it is very sad to think that the country which came together then and beyond is so horribly divided now and not at all compassionate to others. I would never have predicted that at the time. It is an injustice to the victims and their families.
Sending my warm greetings to you, poet friend, New England friend, Barrie